


full of stars

by fujimaru



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: (the kind where "i trust you" becomes your "i love you"), Baby Sunny, Established Relationship, M/M, Over the top 2001 jokes, Two men panic only a little bit as they learn how to live with a kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 03:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16189421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujimaru/pseuds/fujimaru
Summary: Maybe Hal won't be as terrible at this parenthood thing as he's always thought.





	full of stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thiefoflight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thiefoflight/gifts).



_“So, uh, do you know what kind of food she likes?”_

“I don’t know,” Hal replies mockingly, “why don’t I just ask her? Miss Sunny, what would you like for dinner?”

The baby in his lap gurgles in response, and it’s obvious that the noise is audible over the line from Dave’s responding chuckle. _“Okay, okay, I’ll just... get whatever looks good.”_

“Pick up a car seat while you’re there too.”

_“Gotcha. See you in a few.”_

The line clicks and Hal is left alone with Sunny sitting on his lap as the two huddle by a space heater in a little shack that the two men have been renting cash-by-the-week in the foothills of Montana. They’ve been there for maybe about a month and a half, more than enough for Hal to get the place properly wired up and for the temperature to drop to the point where they had to dig the heaters out of the trunk of their sedan, Hal careful not to overload the breakers lest his constant communications monitoring systems be shut down. It wasn’t just on his computer, he explained to Snake (the two of them slipping their personas back on for shop talk), the whole thing was a more of a virus that he’d spread across a couple thousand computers now, siphoning just a small part of the processing power to keep tabs on communications, skimming for keywords: philanthropy, foxhound, metal gear, foxdie, rex,

solid snake.

That’s far from the complete list; he’s got a few more terms in there, a couple variations as he’d rather gather extraneous data than not enough, and of course he’s constantly catching wind of new information, but there’s also a special keyphrase he’d come up with, only giving the search term to a few select people, promising them that “if you ever need us, just search this and I’ll contact you.” When the alert popped up on his screen, he wasn’t surprised to find that it was Jack who was trying to locate them and was more than happy to send Snake on his way with just a few words of caution. He was not prepared, however, to find Snake coming back a couple hours later toting a little girl in his hands, peeling off his sneaking suit, pushing the kid into Hal’s grip and leaving him with just her name before rushing to the car to grab supplies, leaving Hal alone with a child and not a single clue as to what he was supposed to do with her in the meantime.

Sunny’s cooing is making the place seem suddenly more barren than it had on his own.

Hal bounces her gently on one knee, which she seems to like, rewarding him by grinning a few still-cutting teeth and giggling, drawing a smile out of him in return. “It’s pretty quiet in here, isn’t it?” He’s not quite sure how to talk to someone who doesn’t respond, but the noise fills the air and she seems to react to it, which warms Hal’s heart in a way that he isn’t quite sure he’s felt before. “Do you wanna watch something together?”

“Aah!” Sunny beams, and though Hal knows she can’t tell what he’s saying, it makes him feel soft all the same.

“Hmm, what do I have that you might like… oh, I’ve got it! Have you ever seen Hamtaro?” Sunny blows a spit bubble back at him and Hal clicks the folder. “Not a problem! We can just start from the beginning. It’s been a while for me too.” And he’s glad, suddenly, that the shack came with a sofa, as he pictures Dave sitting next to him while he bounces Sunny on his lap, half focused on the screen, half focused on her joyous reactions.

Maybe Dave will be willing to watch with them when he gets back.

He knows that they’ll have to switch bases, now that Jack - Raiden, he corrects himself, as they’re talking business (and God knows who else) is aware of their general location, but this thought is pushed to the back of his mind along with all the rest as Laura (Hiroko, he corrects himself, though the files he managed to nab have both audio tracks embedded) lets Hamtaro run around her room where he’ll find the hole in the wall that’ll lead onto the roof, where he’ll meet all his friends for the very first time. Hal knows that he should be planning where they’ll be going next, and the fact that he can beat-for-beat the whole series still doesn’t quite help swing the decision on his internal pros and cons list, but Sunny seems so captivated by the screen that minutes quickly turn to hours and suddenly their car with it’s signature loose hubcap is pulling up in front of the house.

Dave stumbles through the door, weighed down by grocery bags that appear to be clinging for dear life to every possible limb they can grab. He tilts his head to gesture at the screen. “It’s in English?”

“I don’t think she can read yet,” Hal deadpans.

Dave ignores the sarcasm and plants a peck on Hal’s cheek. “Huh. Never knew they did that.”

“Eh, it’s the age old question, subs or dubs; I usually watch it in Japanese because y’know, the original cast tends to do it better. I will say though, Baccano? They did a surprisingly good job on the dub. I’ll give them props for that one. I guess it is set in America, but it feels natural in a way you rarely get. Cowboy Bebop’s is pretty good too, but that’s already in a league of its own. You really can’t argue with classics.”

Dave’s giving him one of those deer-in-the-headlights expressions he swears he doesn’t use as often as he really does as he places the bags down on the table and starts to remove the contents. “Well, I got the food and the carseat and uh, a couple other things I thought we’d need,” he started as he waved a floral-patterned spoon at Hal, “diapers and wipes and some clothes and all that. It might be a little big, but hopefully it’ll still work.”

“She’ll fit it all soon enough. I’ve heard they grow like weeds at this age.” Hal sits Sunny down on the table next to them and watches as her little hands grab at the bags, trying to help them unpack. He rolls up the sleeves of his sweater and joins in. “You know, I didn’t really think you’d go for dresses.”

“Not like she’s gonna be in the field with me,” Dave smirks, “and it just made sense. Pants are harder to fit.”

“Guess you’re right.” The clothes are pastel and ruffled and he thinks they’ll go nicely with the tuft of silver hair that’s currently sticking out every which way on the baby’s head. He absentmindedly tries to slick it down. The clothes do look a little big compared to Sunny, but Hal’s struck instead by how small they look in Dave’s hands as he folds the sleeves around the back and tucks the dress into a little square. Hal reaches in another bag and pulls out a piece of cloth plastic-stapled to a piece of cardstock.

“Oh, I think that one’s a bib.”

“Daddy’s Little Angel,” the embroidery proudly proclaims.

Hal snorts. “And which one of us is ‘Daddy’?”

“Figured we could take turns,” Dave shrugs, glancing slightly off to the side.

He’s cute, Hal thinks. “Sure. Do you wanna feed her first?” Dave nods, and the two begin to sort through the food. “Does it matter which ones we feed her first? Like, I know meat’s usually first, but all of this is-” fresher than what we’ve been eating, the sentence was about to finish, but it seems a standard fact of life that the two men don’t need to state again.

“Yeah,” Dave replies as if he can read Hal’s thoughts, squinting at the nutritional facts on a jar before screwing the lid off. “They had different food for different ages, but I wasn’t too sure about the specifics so I just got a spread.”

“Good idea.” Hal bends in closer to peer at the label. “Chicken and stars, huh? Fitting.”

“My God,” Dave mutters, his mouth just slightly-too-close to Hal’s ear, and the two of them peel off in giggles, Sunny watching the two of them blankly.

“Please,” Hal begs as he slaps a hand to the table to keep himself upright, wiping a tear from behind his glasses, “you _have_ to.”

Dave dips the spoon into the jar and brings it to Sunny’s lips with an impossibly serious, “Open the pod bay doors, Sunny,” sending the two of them into another fit of laughter as she hungrily slurps the food up.

Hal’s not quite sure what he’s laughing at more, Dave’s stupid jokes or the fact that Dave, _the Solid Snake_ , is right next to him, cracking sci-fi humor to a not-even toddler. He even seems like a natural with the kid, so different to the Dave who badgers him to train on their down time, who he’s seen snap necks with his bare hands, so different from the Dave who he’ll find on some balcony in the early hours of the morning unable to sleep, chainsmoking the night away. He likes it; almost like he’s unlocking hidden content, his character being unlocked bit by bit the more time that they spend together. And it’s fascinating to watch, he thinks, as Dave licks a bit of the food off his thumb, punctuating the action with a “huh, not too bad.”

It’s obvious the girl is hungry, and the two of them agree without comment to not think about how she had been living before this point, just making supportive noises as she gobbles down the full jar and half of a different one, overzealously dropping globs of food all over her chin. “Aah!” Sunny bubbles, and Hal reaches over to wipe her face up with the bib.

“Eugh, remind me to get us to a laundromat. Do we have to burp her at this age?”

“I think that’s just when they’re on milk,” Dave states, though Hal could hear the hesitation in his voice. The two of them both reach over to grab her and back up to let the other through, repeating this dance for a couple seconds until Sunny interrupts it by letting out a belch that knocks the two men wide eyed. She follows it up with a yawn and Hal swoops in to scoop her back up into his arms before she topples over. He rubs circles into her back instinctually and it’s only a couple of seconds before her breathing evens out and she’s softly snoring into Hal’s shoulder.

“Wow,” Dave murmurs, “she must trust you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, if she’s willing to fall asleep on you so quickly. It’s the same with dogs - they only sleep with you if they know you won’t harm them.”

“Huh,” Hal whispers, and he feels Dave at his side as the two of them quietly watch Sunny’s expression twitch. “God, she's so tiny. You think she’s dreaming?”

“I hope so.”

Another pause. “I-”

“I know,” says Snake, and just like that they’re Snake and Otacon again and this shack is just another place they’ll have to move on from. “How soon do you think you can get everything together?”

“An hour? Tops. Listen, you set the carseat up and get Sunny strapped in, I’ll handle everything in here.” He passes the baby to Dave who takes her cautiously, cradling her from the back and bottom in his battle-worn hands and pulling her in close to protect her from the evening air. Hal takes a moment to think about how small she is before turning back to focus on the task at hand.

Packing’s become routine for them. Cardboard breaks too easily; Hal wraps their belongings in cloth and packs them carefully in plastic tubs, knowing which items fit well with which others from years of practice. He hooks his phone up to the network in lieu of his laptop, which shouldn’t put enough of a dent in the processing power to miss anything, but his nerves will still be buzzing until they settle back down and he’s able to get everything fully connected again. He’s about halfway through their belongings when Dave pops back in to help carry them out to the car.

“Is she still sleeping?”

“Like the dead. God only knows how long she’s been up before this.”

“Poor kid.” Hal sighs and slides a box over to Dave, who hefts it up with ease.

It only takes a couple trips to move their belongings to the car, the conversation dying off as they run past each other, cutting Hal’s original estimate down by a quarter. They both run one last sweep across the building, each acting as the other’s backup even though they know there won’t be anything left by this point. “She’s still just out in the car. Would this count as neglectful parenting?” Dave jokes as he shines a flashlight down the garbage disposal, and Hal stifles a laugh.

“You know, I… I’ve been thinking about what you said and I don’t really think that _either_ of us should be her dad.” Hal leaves the door to the bathroom open just a crack, enough to make the room look as though it’s been sitting staged for months, just waiting for the next occupant.

“Oh?” Dave sets their final week’s rent and the keys on the counter, the only lingering trace of their presence.

“She’s strong, she can do without one.” He doesn’t need to dredge up the past right now. “We can be like, her cool uncles.”

The two hop into the car, Hal taking the driver’s seat and Dave lighting a cigarette out the window, open further than usual to make sure it doesn’t blow back. “Just trying to get out of the legal responsibilities, are you? You know, cool’s a pretty relative term. I’m not sure kids these days are all that into outlaws.”

“Hmm, I figured that the whole... cowboy western outlaw thing would be timeless.”

“Jesus, you and Ocelot both.” Dave waits for Hal to shift the car in drive before blowing the smoke behind him. “You might have a point though. Maybe we should watch Cowboy Hiphop with her.”

“Cowboy _Be_ bop,” Hal corrects as he takes one last glance at the building behind them, “and absolutely, when she’s old enough. We’ve got plenty to get through in the meantime.”

“You think she’d be into Sailor Moon?”

“Is that - wait, have you _seen_ Sailor Moon?”

Dave shrugs and taps a bit of ash off the end of the cigarette. “I’ve been around in my time.”

Hal claps a hand to his chest with an exaggerated gasp. “And here I thought I was your first. Of _course_ she’ll like Sailor Moon, it’s a classic.”

“Of course. You really can’t argue with classics,” Dave finishes. “Uncle Hal’s here to educate.”

He was the one who brought it up, but hearing the title coming out of Dave’s mouth feels suddenly so natural that Hal grins despite himself. “As long as Uncle Dave’s here to watch it with us.”

“Cowboy Disco? Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Oh, see, now you’re just doing it on purpose!”

Dave snickers and the two pause for the moment to take in the stillness of the night. “She should take your name.”

Hal’s still riding off their laughter. “Hm?”

“Sunny Emmerich. I don’t want her tied to... “ Dave shakes his head. “You know. She doesn’t deserve that.”

Hal swallows. It’s not like he didn’t expect this, but at the same time, “Dave… are you sure?”

“I think you’ll be a good role model for her.”

It’s normally something he’d argue, but the tone of Dave’s voice - the topic of conversation alone leaves no room to argue and the weight of what Dave’s leaving to him suddenly hits so hard that all that Hal can choke out is, “Thanks.”

They drive in silence for a while longer, Dave letting the cigarette burn down to his fingers before he flicks the butt out the window.

“You go to sleep.”

“We still don’t know where we’re-”

Hal jerks his head towards the back seat. “She’s going to be awake soon enough and one of us needs to be rested. You’ve had a long day, I’m fine with driving for a while. We can figure it all out in the morning.”

It’s Dave’s turn to respond with a simple “thanks” and rest his head against the window as the car rides along. It’s about half an hour before the breathing in the seat next to him slows enough for Hal to tell that Dave’s asleep; another ten pass before he spots a diner sign and pulls over to the frontage road. He’s struck by the urge to lock the doors behind him, just to make sure that Sunny’s safe, but realizes quickly that the locks would be more of a hindrance than a help should anything happen while Dave’s there.

The fact that he’s already taking the kid into account helps to sooth his fears a little bit, though. Maybe he’s not as bad at this as he could fear.

The diner’s nothing special, deserted besides the waitress and a cook, and Hal’s “coffee, to-go, please” seems to be about par for the course.

“Long drive ahead of you?”

“You could say that,” Hal smiles.

“Make sure you get home safe. Kids, at that age?” She gestures to Sunny’s car seat, clearly visible through the window. “Vacations are fun and all, but they really need a place to call home.”

“I - yeah.” Hal pauses for a second. “Hey, do you have a wi-fi connection I could borrow for a minute?”

The waitress gestures to a sign on the wall. “Knock yourself out. It’s about time I brew a fresh pot anyway.”

It’s only about five minutes before he’s back in the driver’s seat, packets of sugar and creamer stuffed in his pockets, wiggling Dave’s fingers carefully out of the way so that he can rest his coffee in the holder, but in the time they were stopped Hal - no, Otacon has already managed to find a lead on a defunct plane, having passed hands so many times already that the records are basically illegible, ownership so convoluted there’d be no way to keep tabs on them as they hop from state to state, country to country. And sure, maybe he should wake Dave to let him know, but-

He turns the radio on as low as it’ll go and pulls the sedan back onto the highway, Sunny and Dave’s snores punctuating the soft jazz that always seems to be eternally playing on backwater roads.

Dave’s head lolls against Hal’s shoulder as the car rounds a turn and Hal’s certain it’ll all work out just fine.

The dashboard clock reads 3:02.

He knows where they need to go.

And the sky above them is full of stars.

**Author's Note:**

> I WAS TRYING TO MAKE THIS SCHMOOPY but what's more schmoopy than showing how much you trust someone. Nothing. Don't call me out I only write angst, I don't go here. 
> 
> And for the record, "Tender Chicken and Stars" is a real kind of baby food, and Baccano originally aired the same year that Sunny was born. I did my research. 
> 
> fuck writing authors notes and happy birthday xtine


End file.
